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Bike lanes being peddled for Richmond and Adelaide

Separated bike lanes like this one recently installed on Sherbourne St. are meant to provide a safer ride on busy downtown streets. Something like this may be coming to Adelaide and/or Richmond Sts., marking the first major east-west cycling route through the heart of downtown Toronto. (JACK LAKEY / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)

By Tess KalinowskiTransportation Reporter

Mon., Jan. 7, 2013

After more than a decade of spinning their wheels, Toronto cycling advocates say they’re excited because a protected, east-west cycling route through the busiest part of downtown is finally poised to take off this year.

An environmental study of a Richmond-Adelaide bike corridor should finally be completed by the end of 2013, making a construction start next year a real possibility, says the chair of the city’s public works committee.

The bike lanes would connect Sherbourne St. in the east to Bathurst in the west. The study will determine the best configuration and route, says Toronto’s Cycling Infrastructure manager Daniel Egan. But he expects that the high traffic volume of those streets will favour physically separated cycling lanes similar to those recently created on Sherbourne.

What’s not known is how traffic would be affected, depending on whether the design study recommends a single lane on each of the two one-way streets, running in the same direction as vehicular traffic, or whether one street, Richmond or Adelaide, would be selected for a bi-directional bike route.

Councillor Denzil Minan-Wong, chair of the city’s public works and infrastructure committee, said he doesn’t have a preference. Either way, he said, drivers will be affected.

“If it’s uni-directional, you’re going to take out one (car) lane on Richmond and one lane on Adelaide,” Minnan-Wong said. “Whereas, if it’s bi-directional, you’re only dealing with one street, which is an advantage. The other implication is the cost, because when you put in a bi-directional lane you’ve got to put in a signalized intersection.”

Cycling advocates have been calling for an east-west route since 2001, when there were 15,000 weekday cyclists downtown. That number has more than doubled in the years since, according to Cycle Toronto.

“It’s a crucial part of the network. In the southern part of the downtown there’s no way to travel east-west on a safe piece of infrastructure. Separated bike lanes are really important, because both Richmond (and) Adelaide are fast-moving, one-way streets. So having safe, protected infrastructure is critical,” said spokesman Jared Kolb.

The city’s approved bike network plan recommends two east-west connections and two north-south connections through the core. Sherbourne is the north-south route in the east. The western route is supposed to extend the existing bike lanes on St. George and Beverly Sts. all the way south to the waterfront. A downtown transportation study will consider possible waterfront connections, Kolb said.

It’s crucial that any bike lanes on Richmond and Adelaide be considered in the larger context of pedestrian traffic, cars and transit, said Councillor Adam Vaughan (Trinity-Spadina). Although he’s willing to consider bike lanes, he hasn’t made up his mind. The entertainment district needs to be considered as a destination, not just a series of thoroughfares, he said.

“We need to look at the streets in this area and how they can be recalibrated for what is being forecast as extraordinary growth and a multitude of ways people get around, including huge new pedestrian volumes,” Vaughan said.

The city’s bid committee is expected to approve, on Wednesday, a $634,000 contract with IBI Group transportation consultants to conduct the environmental study.

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